That damned Joel. He’s done it again. He beat me to reviewing J.D. Tuccille’s new novel High Desert Barbecue. He has a habit of doing things like that. Years ago, when The Mental Militia forums were still The Claire Files, I started noticing this person. He went by the handle “John DeWitt” then (an obscure literary reference, I gather). And the thing I noticed about him was this: Every time I felt the urge to make some particularly incisive and witty response to somebody else on the forum, I would scan further down the thread and discover that this “DeWitt”…
Category: Miscellaneous
I apologize. Between being busy and having computer troubles, I’ve been among the missing. Both the busy-ness and the estrangenesss are likely to continue for a week or so, but I’ll try to be better about the blogging. In the meantime … —– The thing I’m most busy with right now is an assignment from Backwoods Home. Not writing, but art. I’ve been doing small article illustrations for them for a few months. I knew that someday — probably a few years down the road — they’d ask me to try doing a cover, a much bigger deal. Don Childers,…
Okay, let’s start out with some nice stories. (The “nice” in this onecomes quite a ways below the headline.) A pair of Muslim cab drivers save a bagel shop. Anybody here use these emergency foods? “What do a bunch of old Jews know about living forever?” Looks like a useful book to keep on hand Sigh. “The more things change …” They were writing stories like this onejust before 9-11, too. And a coupla months later, the nation was full of robotic government worshippers. Truer words … “The science of lasting happiness.” I don’t usually have the patience to watch…
Early this year I used a wonderful Christmas gift to buy a lively, colorful template and a domain name, and I set about building what I hoped would be a freedomista portal — sort of a daily starting place for all things to do with living free. I was going great guns on the project until I ran into a couple of tiny coding issues. The young man I hired to help took nearly two months to do the hour or so’s worth of work (couldn’t fire him; he was a friend’s son; and to his credit when it was…
Doing some tab clearing here … Holder sez Fast & Furious was a bad idea That he, of course, opposed. Yeah. Okaaaaay. But why lacerate his spleen in the first place? Dunno how big a problem this is going to be for people outside of China. But it’s something for PM buyers to be aware of. One more reason to be glad you don’t live in Britain. Who knew that maple syrup played such an intriguing part in American history? Dr. Andrew Weil on dealing with depression. J.D. Tuccille on “Free-Range Publishing.” Some things in life really do get better.…
Hm. Great minds. (You may recall this.) And almost great ones. (Funny how so many people come so close but miss the real point.) (Tip o’ hat to PT.) Oooh, da poo widdle snitch powice infowment. Him get his widdle feewings hurt. (Tip o’ hat to C^2.)* Weird stuff found in the woods. (Don’t click unless you have a lot of time to waste today.) A tad dated. But amazing Also amazing. Owl flying in for a kill at 1000 frames per second. Oh my. The Internet Movie Firearms Database. Search on a movie or TV show and learn all…
Here’s the latest from Jake MacGregor. Just one chapter again this week (the cold weather is rough on Jake’s health). But it’s one that ties some loose threads. Silver on “The Free Rider Fallacy.” (For the next time one of your dubious friends brings up one of those endless why-liberty-can’t-work hypotheticals.) Sweden. Hey, maybe you could send us some of your government. Well, on second thought … Of course you haven’t been following the long, drawn-out wedding and Insta-Divorce (TM) of whichever Kardashian that is … starts with a K, something like that. Me neither. Ahem. And I don’t read…
Still deadlining. Oy. But I’m beginning to believe that the light I see at the end of that tunnel might not be an onrushing train. This weekend I’m going to collapse in a happy heap. Meanwhile, the news … “Penn Jillette’s 10 commandments for atheists.” I’m neither an atheist nor a fan of commandments. Still, these are pretty good. (Tip o’ hat to PT.) Can any of you techno-hackers tell me if this might work at a distance of 50 yards or so? I’ve had this little problem … Six things nobody will tell you about MF Global. I mean,…
The road from self-reliance to self-pity. Whole gangs of “constitutional sheriffs” in Northern California? Wonders never cease. (Too bad this intriguing article never gets around to mentioning the very important state of Jefferson.) Via Wendy McElroy: You’ll never believe the latest group the FBI considers a threat. (I’m going to have to create a new topic category for Stupidity Above And Beyond the Call of Even the Government.) While I don’t agree with this writer’s snarky take on Occupy Wall Street, it sure does seem some young lefties are learning some real-life lessons. Including one right out of Atlas Shrugged.…
Man, this round of deadlining is hurting my head and my whole self. I’ve just done the second draft of the most difficult article I’ve written in years. Probably wrote 15,000 words overall (that’s about 1/6th of a novel, people) to get 4,000 that I hope are useable. Write, rewrite, cut, cut, cut, rewrite, cut, cut. Have a feeling the client will still want one more session of slash and burn. Maybe tear the thing down to 3,000 or 3,500. After that, more deadlines. More challenging ones, in a way. Some days, I wish I’d taken up a promising career…